Dynamic Analysis of the Structures under Dynamic Distributed Loads Using Spectral Element Method

Abstract

Finite element method(FEM) is one of the most popularly used method analyzing the dynamic behaviors of structures. But unless number of finite elements is large enough, the results from FEM some what different from exact analytical solutions, especially at high frequency range. On the other hand, as the spectral analysis method(SAM) deals directly with the governing equations of a structure, the results from this melthod cannot but be exact regardless of any frequency range. However, the SAM can be applied only to the case where a structure is subjected to the concentrated loads, despite a structure could be unddergone distributed loads more generally. In this paper, therefore, new spectral analysis algorithm is introduced through the spectral element method(SEM), so that it can be applied to anlystructures whether they are subjected to the concentrated loads or to the distributed loads. The results from this new SEM are compared with both the results from FEM and the exact analytical solutions. As expected, the results from new SEM algorithm are found to be almost identical to the exact analytical solutions while those from FEM are not agreed well with the exact analytical solutions as the mode number increases.